Database makers are racing to integrate such advanced technologies as analytics into their server products to reduce the complexity associated with tying in these features with third-party products.
In addition, built-in analytical and file management capabilities in traditional database servers from Microsoft, Sybase, IBM and Oracle are allowing IT organisations to start using such technologies more quickly.
Microsoft this week will announce the public beta of its SQL Server 2000 database, which provides a built-in data mining engine and new data mining algorithms. This will enable users of the database to do such tasks as predict customer behavior based on both the relational data in the database and the multidimensional data in SQL Server's OLAP (online analytical processing) engine.
Microsoft isn't alone. Sybase plans to merge its Adaptive Server IQ data analysis engine with its Adaptive Server Enterprise database over the next 12 months, according to John Chen, CEO of the company.
In addition, Sybase this summer will begin shipping new analytical components focused on customer relationship management for its Enterprise Information Portal. The data models, called Industry Warehouse Studios, provide business intelligence functionality for vertical industries.
Meanwhile, IBM this month released to beta Version 7.1 of its DB2 database, which has an OLAP Starter Kit.
Oracle, for its part, is offering a unique way to put data into its database.
This week, the company will make available to Oracle Technology Network developers its iFS (Internet File System), software that replaces any operating system's file system as a repository for stored data. By storing e-mail or word processing data in the database, rather than in the file system, developers can provide enhanced search functions; version control; and check-in, check-out capabilities as well as better security.
Users search for files in iFS using a Windows Explorer-like interface. Because it can store 150 document types, it will provide document management capabilities to Web applications, said Oracle officials in Redwood Shores, Calif.
iFS, which was originally due by the end of 1998, is now due to be commercially available by mid-May 2000.
Microsoft got the integration ball rolling in a big way last year when it bundled its OLAP Services engine with its SQL Server 7 database. Cascade Designs Inc. used OLAP Services to give analytical capabilities to its salespeople. "We never would have jumped that way if it wasn't part of SQL Server," said Lee Fromson, chief financial officer at Cascade, in Seattle.
